


the song of the unrestrained

by nezstorm



Category: Red Dead Redemption (Video Games)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Gen, Nonbinary Arthur Morgan, Nonbinary Character, Possibly Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-05
Updated: 2019-11-03
Packaged: 2019-11-12 14:01:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18012290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nezstorm/pseuds/nezstorm
Summary: He was-- He was.He.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> [this is just a snippet. i just wanted to write nb!arthur morgan, i’ll possibly write more, either gen, charthur or 2am, who knows]

There are thoughts and feelings Arthur hasn’t put down even in the safety of his journal, even as fiercely protected as it was. Writing something down made it true, after all, made it real.

 

Made it probable for someone other than Arthur to see.

 

There was a vulnerability to it, the bitten back retorts and the shoved back thoughts, torn in half before they were ever truly born.

 

He was-- He was.

 

He.

 

What makes a man? Arthur wondered, but only ever on his lonesome, with the open sky bright with starlight, the air crisp and the silence broken only ever by the hooting of an owl, even his horse long since asleep.

 

What makes a man a _man_? It is the timbre of his voice? The deadly efficiency of his walk? The lives he took? The number of people he touched intimately? _The size of his dick_?

 

What makes a woman, too? Lesser as they all seem to want to make you think? Weaker as if they didn’t care and carry generations, bearing the weight of the world?

 

What makes you neither? Or both? _More._

 

Maybe there were times where Arthur was the one to scoff at the most at a man who was too soft, too _feminine._ Maybe he’d raised eyebrows at women wearing pants, making of themselves more than what other thought they were capable of.

 

Maybe it was envy speaking through him, overshadowed later by shame, powered by anger and self-loathing and dreams he never thought to make more than that. Just dreams.

 

He meets all sorts of people during his travels, his errands, his jobs. Helps and kills folk with little regard, most of the time, even if he prefers former to the latter these days.

 

He’s getting old. _He’s--_

 

He.

 

Dutch’s son, one of Dutch’s boys, the boogeyman, the man who--

 

There are rules to this world, set like in stone, but then there are people like, like-- Algernon Wasp, so far above the mundane that a corset doesn’t make him less of a man.

 

Not in Arthur’s eyes, but isn’t he biased?

 

_What. Makes. A. Man. A. Man?_

 

He’s asked Hosea that, once, drunk and miserable, on one of _h-i-s_  bad days where nothing about himself seemed right.

 

“It’s the choices a person makes,” Hosea had replied back then, still holding his book, but all of his focus on Arthur, his unruly child, like he _knew_ more, like he understood the storm raging in Arthur’s thoughts.

  



	2. Chapter 2

Arthur has looked at men and at women and all he could think at the end of the day was that horses had it much easier, why couldn’t he have been born one instead?

 

Arthur has looked at Margaret, who dressed as a female for fame, at Charles Chatenay in a dress that was meant to disguise his true nature, at Algernon Wasp with his exceptionally slender waist and extravagant clothes and found none of them less of a man for it. 

 

And here he--

 

_ He-- _

 

Here  **he** is, a cow _ boy _ , in his work jeans, having to trim his beard every other day, only ever ugly, old and sad in the mirror and sees a  _ joke _ . A caricature of a man at best.

 

And no amount of blood on his hands --  _ his hands _ \-- will ever turn him into anything more. 

 

And still he doesn’t know what makes a man a man a man a man a man amanamanamanamanamanaM **A** _ N _ ?

 

What doesn’t?

 

Where do the lines blur?  _ Why? _

 

The choices  _ he _ makes are supposed to make him into a man and yet no matter the path he takes he never feels any closer to actually feeling right in his skin, grown into his beard, proud to stand to piss. 

 

He looks at Dutch, at Hosea, at Charles and Javier and John, and sees them no different than him at the core of it: all of them outlaws, damaged, doing their all to survive.  _ Yet still _ . 

 

He-- never feels just as masculine, just as  _ man _ , as they are.

 

There is a chasm inside of him, a wound left to fester for as long as he can remember, that doesn’t allow him to ever feel whole, ever feel right when Dutch calls him  _ boy _ , his  _ son _ , when Hosea says he’s proud of the  _ man _ he’s become. 

 

Arthur only ever finds h-i-m-self lacking. 

 

He tries, he does, to do what a man does: he kills, he drinks, he fucks, he’s gruff and violent  and finds himself easy to anger, but it’s a kind of rage born from uncertainty, from not having a place even in  _ this  _ world -- set aside from rules and laws and most prejudice. 

 

Yet still.

 

_ He _ doesn’t fit. 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> not edited bc i'm impatient.   
> also, possibly heading into algernon/arthur territory tho i might just leave it as gen too, who knows?

Maybe the problem wasn’t that Arthur wasn’t a man, but that he wasn’t  _ human _ in the first place.

 

So many dubbed him a monster after all, a butcher, a brute. An attack dog at best.

 

Maybe -- he wondered half-delirious with blood loss and bloodlust both, fresh after another gunfight, and crawling back to camp -- all these years spent questioning  _ his self _ were for nothing. All the sleepless nights, hours spent on horseback locked in his head because he was yet again alone on an errand--

 

**He** wasn’t a man simply because he never fell in that category. Nothing inhuman does.

 

A proper man didn’t lack humanity. And if there was anything Arthur actually knew about himself it was that he was  _ lacking _ .

 

He thinks of it more, wasting time looking for flowers and feathers for Algernon again. It keeps him away from camp for days at a time, but it brings in money so Dutch doesn’t much mind. It leaves Arthur to dwell and ponder, to fester in life-long wounds. 

 

It’s a long one, this particular errand, sent him all the way to West Elizabeth and back. It also almost killed him twice, crawling with cougars and bears as it was, only his horse spooking alerting him to the danger and successfully bringing him out of his head, saved them both. 

 

So when he finally gets the order back to Algernon he’s more than a little tired, battleworn and just done with everything. 

 

Maybe that’s why he stays for a cup of tea, why he listens to Wasp go on and on about his newest commission, the ingredients for which Arthur already has tucked away in his breast pocket.

 

Arthur stays mostly silent through it all, watching Algernon and how graceful he seems, how at home he looks in his body and clothes, unusual as his choices are, how excited he is for his new project and how he doesn’t seem to judge Arthur-- Tacitus at all. Not for his worn and dirty clothes, not for the gruff way he is, for his scars and wrinkles and the ugliness of  _ his  _ body and soul. 

 

As if they are not different at all despite being stark opposites of each other.

 

“Tacitus?” Algernon asks in a way that makes Arthur suspect he’s been calling his name for a while, “Are you quite alright?”

 

Arthur means to say he’s fine, he does, but his thoughts are a mess and his mouth seems to have a mind of its own because instead he asks, “Why do you wear a corset?” 

 

He winces right after he registers what he’s just said, an apology already forming, but Algernon replies before he can say another word, not a sign of irritation or hurt on his face.

 

“It makes me feel empowered even though it’s quite restricting. It makes me feel more graceful and distinguished. And do look quite fetching in a corset if I do say so myself,” Algernon adds with a wink and a charming smile.

 

Arthur mulls it over for a moment because Algernon does in fact look good in a corset, but then again, Arthur hasn’t ever seen him not wearing one.

 

“Would you like to try one on?” he asks, similarly to how he’d asked him that the first time Arthur came to his shop.

 

Arthur is quick to shake his head because it’s not-- 

 

“No. No, thank you, I’m a m--- I’m a little too big for one,” he amends quickly, because he doesn’t intend to lie to Algernon. He doesn’t feel a man and it’s that why he asked about the corset and not for a chance to asphyxiate himself. 

 

Algernon studies him, seemingly trying to gauge Arthur’s mood, as if that near slip up gave away more than Arthur intended to say.

 

“What is it that you’re really trying to ask, Tacitus?” Algernon asks gently, his soft fingers resting over Arthur’s rough ones in comfort, “I won’t be offended, I promise.”

 

It’s an opening Arthur has been looking for and he thinks that Algernon indeed won’t be offended by whatever Arthur asks, but then again, Arthur has been known to put a foot in his mouth more often than not. It’s easier to put words together on the pages in his journal, where no one can judge him if he restructures the sentence time and time again until he can shape it into what he’s really intended to say.

 

And Arthur really doesn’t want to hurt Algernon in any way, he’s been kind to him and generous too. And he might also be the only one Arthur could ever truly ask about this. 

 

“I ain’t… I ain’t asking ‘cause I think that you’re not-- that there’s something wrong with you, you’re a fine man,” Arthur begins, “But-- Have you ever-- Do you-- I mean, are you-- Ah, dammit!”

 

He curses again and stands, pulling his hand out of Algernon’s comforting hold and overturning his cup in the process, almost sending it to the floor. He’s quick to right it back up, but he almost crashes into Algernon trying to do the same, and they almost break the whole set of china in the process. 

 

It’s near a disaster, all of it, and it’s all because Arthur is an old, dumb brute who can’t even be a man properly. 

 

“Tacitus!” Algernon scolds because apparently in his frustration, Arthur has said all of that aloud.

 

Algernon’s eyes are with shock, his arms paused midway like he’s been about to grab Arthur’s arms to still him. There’s no pity or disgust in it, no immediate signs of hate, but Arthur has had it with this day, these months of anguish and unrest, with the destruction he carries about himself like air.

 

“Sorry,” he mumbles, rights his hat, “I better go.”

 

He leaves, ignoring Algernon calling his name. 

 

But then again, he’s not  _ Tacitus _ any more than he’s a  _ man _ . 

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written on my phone so I blame everything on autocorrect.

Algernon doesn't actually find Arthur in the traditional sense of the word. He trips over _him_ right around the corner of his shop.

 

Arthur must make a pitiful sight, but _he's_ in no state to care. _He's_ still drunk, adrenalin still pumping through _him_ after narrowly escaping a brawl at the saloon.

 

One too many "Hey, old _man_ !" thrown _his_ way by other patrons had _him_ snap and almost smash the bottle of whiskey Arthur's been pouring  from over someone's head. 

 

All Arthur wanted was to drink and forget, for a moment, how much wrong there is with _him_ . How much of… _his_ self is actually a lie, a fabrication. Arthur has been a scavenger _his_ whole life, an opportunist. 

 

 _He's_ picked scraps and picked through corpses and ruins, _he's_ lived off berries and hunted down game with only the night sky as _his_ guide. _He's_ siphoned and sucked in as much of the attention and the facsimiles of love _he_ could find. 

 

But more than all that _Arthur_ has always simply been a mistake.

 

Never really worth the time to  love and cherish, only ever used and beaten. Ugly through and through so does it really matter in the end that Arthur isn't a **he**?

 

 _He'll_ end up in a ditch abandoned and forgotten soon enough anyway. 

 

"You're speaking nonsense, Tacitus," Algernon says softly and Arthur can only laugh harshly at that. Of course _he'd_ only humiliate _him_ self even more in front of the beautiful Algernon Wasp. That's who Arthur-- who _he_ is after all.

 

"Come, Tacitus, I'm afraid I'm not strong enough to lift you up by myself." But having said that Algernon still makes the effort, his soft, gentle hands hooked under Arthur's armpits as he tries and fails to make Arthur budge.

 

"Just leave, Algernon," Arthur slurs, "I ain't worth it."

 

"I disagree, dear friend, but I'd rather we argue that in the comfort of my shop at least."

 

"Why?"

 

Algernon huffs. 

 

"Because it's cold here, Tacitus, and I at least am not built for such harsh conditions." He pulls at Arthur one more time then gives up, choosing to stare at Arthur pleasingly instead. "You wouldn't have me suffer, would you?"

 

Arthur sighs, hits _his_ head back against the building _he's_ been leaning on.  Then Arthur gathers what energy _he_ has left and gets up from the ground.

 

"Nah, not for the likes of me," is what _he_ tells Algernon.

 

 _He_ ignores the way Algernon looks at _him_ and just follows him to the shop. Just a body moving along to what Arthur orders, to what others demand. 

 

Just a shell of a _man_.  

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I make no promises that this will get finished. The updates if they come will be irregular. Writing fic hasn't been fun for a long time and I got a hectic life which isn't really anybody's business, so keep that in mind.


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